Born in a hazy drone of feedback in a Winnipeg jam space before being marinated for thousands of hours in a van between crowded, sweaty basement shows, Pop Crimes are now making a name for themselves across North America among those who like their post-punk music to be raw and loud as fuck. “We just finished like six, six and a half weeks coast to coast,” says Stefan Wolf (guitar, vocals). “We played about ten US dates, then travelled from Halifax out to Vancouver.” After a couple sets at Sled Island, these four exhausted punks made their way back to Winnipeg, where Pop Crimes will celebrate the hometown release of their new 7” single “The Fly” with a basement show alongside Crosss and Vampires. To escape the mosquito onslaught that has descended on the prairies with the warm weather, the boys will be hunkering down and starting work directly on a debut LP.“Everybody’s been asking us [about that] lately,” Wolf said with a laugh, as he paused to light a smoke while construction hammered on behind us. “Ideally it will be done by this winter.” In light of this activity, we caught up with Stefan over a late afternoon cocktail at Winnipeg’s West Broadway neighbourhood mainstay to talk about crazy drunk Americans, van tapes, and why Winnipeg is such a weird place to make music.Noisey: On this last tour you played a ton of dates. Was there anywhere that really stuck out as, like, really fuckin’ weird? Somewhere you played that was just crazy?
Stefan Wolf: Yeah, actually we played this really weird town in Idaho, this inbred Mormon city. Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I mean, it was really cool until everybody got drunk and it came out how gun crazy they really were. They started calling us “faggots” and shit and we realized very quickly that it wasn’t really the most comfortable place to be. The show was in this weird house that they had converted into a bar. It’s just like anybody’s basement. But they didn’t charge for booze, and they didn’t charge people to get in – which they didn’t tell us. There was like 100 people there, everyone was going crazy. But after, when everybody got drunk, it got weird. Like, so… there’s no cash? They were like, “Yeah. We’re still trying to figure out how to make this work.” Maybe charging for booze might be your first step? They were like, “Yeah, if people paid, like, a buck a beer it might work out.” I’m pretty sure it’s easy enough to charge a buck a beer. [laughs]How did that show come about? Did you set it up?
We set that up with this really sweet band, Blackwater Prophet, from Spokane. Coeur d’Alene is only like 20 minutes from Spokane, so those guys put us in touch with them. It was should have worked out better, but the girl who set it up got pneumonia or something, so she wasn’t there. But, you know, it was fun.What are some of the other bands you played with on the road that people should really check out?
From Vancouver, Woolworm. We played with them at Sled Island as well. They were just super awesome. Mormon Crosses, we played with them in Vancouver as well. The Ying Yangs in New York were really rad. And Safe Word in Oakland were definitely amazing. But really, there were so many. I’d have to flip through my tape collection in my van to really know.Speaking of van tapes, was there anything that really got a lot of play when you were on the road? Any go-tos?
There was a lot of War on Drugs on the first tour. A lot of Kool Keith. The second leg… a lot of Lee Hazelwood. And then just whatever tapes we picked up.Are you seeing more cassette releases these days? It seems like everyone’s putting out tapes.
Everybody’s doing tapes. It’s great, it’s the only thing I can listen to in the van when we’re touring. By the end of tour, the back pockets in our van are just jammed packed with records that we haven’t been able to listen to. We’ve thought about bringing a portable record player on the road. But it doesn’t really make sense.You’ve put out an EP a couple years back, and you have a couple singles out now on 7”. Are you working towards a full length or what?
That’s the plan. Now that we’re back, we have a couple shows throughout the summer, but we’re really just gonna hunker down and start demoing, start recording. We’ve got a bunch of new songs. We basically don’t play anything off our first EP. Even the stuff we have recorded have been reworked so much that they’re basically different songs now. I like the idea of recording it ourselves, but if it came about I’d like to work with somebody. It depends, I guess, how our demos sound. If they sound good enough, we’ll just do it ourselves. Working in the studio is good if you know exactly what you’re doing. But we tend to rework things a lot. Once something’s recorded, it’s like “ahh, let’s change this, let’s change that,” and when it’s done it’s a completely different song. It’s nice to have that time, to have no constraints.How has the band changed since you put out that first EP in 2012?
We’re getting a lot more comfortable being experimental live. In our jam space, we’ll feedback and play with noise and jam things out for 20 minutes, which on the recording might only be three minutes long. We’re slowly getting to a point where we’re comfortable doing that live. The songs themselves are more concise, I think. We’re giving space to add improvisation, while at the same time the song structures are pretty straight forward. The first couple songs we recorded were kind of all over the place.Considering you’ve done so much touring lately, is there a perception of Winnipeg out there? What’s that like?
People are always really curious, actually. Depending where you are, everybody’s interested. They’re like, “What’s the deal?” I think people always hear about Winnipeg bands, but maybe Winnipeg bands don’t necessarily tour that much? We’ll get out there, and everybody always knows one or two bands. It could be as obvious as Propagandhi, or it could just be some super obscure band that I haven’t even heard of. The places we’ve been playing, people are always talking about, like, HAM or Kittens. Stuff like that. I guess they’re finding out about our stuff that way. Someone in Lethbridge was like, “I saw you were from Winnipeg and I didn’t even bother checking out your music. I just showed up. The last band I saw from Winnipeg was HAM.” I guess they played Lethbridge a lot? But he seemed to think we fell in the same vein. I guess there’s a sound that we’ve gotten into that is apparently “Winnipeg.” What that is, I don’t know.How would you describe Winnipeg’s scene to people, then? Say, like to someone in Coeur d’Alene or Wisconsin or some place like that?It’s the most hodge-podge music scene ever. I love it. It’s super tight, but there’s no bands that sound like each other. There’s no definitive scene. You go to Vancouver or Halifax, most cities have a sound. But I don’t think Winnipeg has a sound at all. It’s all over the place, but everything kind of works. There’s like, maybe two bands in the city that we sound like. But we play with everybody. We’ll play with pop bands, or metal bands, or noise bands, whatever. I love the scene, it’s always interesting.What would you say is a disadvantage of being a band from Winnipeg?
Disadvantages? Places to play. I’ve been putting on shows in my basement for the past month because there’s no venue that’ll book them. I mean, I like house shows. On the road they’re the most comfortable ones to play. There’s not the stress of getting people into a bar. It’s a lot easier to get people to come hang out at a house. It’s never really good sound, but it doesn’t really matter. People are more into it, it’s more intimate. And when people are actually there, they freak out a lot more. You can’t hide at the back of the bar.Catch Pop Crimes in Winnipeg Thursday July 3 for their 7” release in the basement of the HMS Arlington.Sheldon Birnie commits crimes against pop all the time - @badguybirnie---Want more from the 'Peg? Powder Blue is making trippy synth-pop music, we got drunk at the Junos, and learned some manners from DJ Mama Cutsworth.
Advertisement
Stefan Wolf: Yeah, actually we played this really weird town in Idaho, this inbred Mormon city. Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I mean, it was really cool until everybody got drunk and it came out how gun crazy they really were. They started calling us “faggots” and shit and we realized very quickly that it wasn’t really the most comfortable place to be. The show was in this weird house that they had converted into a bar. It’s just like anybody’s basement. But they didn’t charge for booze, and they didn’t charge people to get in – which they didn’t tell us. There was like 100 people there, everyone was going crazy. But after, when everybody got drunk, it got weird. Like, so… there’s no cash? They were like, “Yeah. We’re still trying to figure out how to make this work.” Maybe charging for booze might be your first step? They were like, “Yeah, if people paid, like, a buck a beer it might work out.” I’m pretty sure it’s easy enough to charge a buck a beer. [laughs]
Advertisement
We set that up with this really sweet band, Blackwater Prophet, from Spokane. Coeur d’Alene is only like 20 minutes from Spokane, so those guys put us in touch with them. It was should have worked out better, but the girl who set it up got pneumonia or something, so she wasn’t there. But, you know, it was fun.What are some of the other bands you played with on the road that people should really check out?
From Vancouver, Woolworm. We played with them at Sled Island as well. They were just super awesome. Mormon Crosses, we played with them in Vancouver as well. The Ying Yangs in New York were really rad. And Safe Word in Oakland were definitely amazing. But really, there were so many. I’d have to flip through my tape collection in my van to really know.Speaking of van tapes, was there anything that really got a lot of play when you were on the road? Any go-tos?
There was a lot of War on Drugs on the first tour. A lot of Kool Keith. The second leg… a lot of Lee Hazelwood. And then just whatever tapes we picked up.Are you seeing more cassette releases these days? It seems like everyone’s putting out tapes.
Everybody’s doing tapes. It’s great, it’s the only thing I can listen to in the van when we’re touring. By the end of tour, the back pockets in our van are just jammed packed with records that we haven’t been able to listen to. We’ve thought about bringing a portable record player on the road. But it doesn’t really make sense.
Advertisement
That’s the plan. Now that we’re back, we have a couple shows throughout the summer, but we’re really just gonna hunker down and start demoing, start recording. We’ve got a bunch of new songs. We basically don’t play anything off our first EP. Even the stuff we have recorded have been reworked so much that they’re basically different songs now. I like the idea of recording it ourselves, but if it came about I’d like to work with somebody. It depends, I guess, how our demos sound. If they sound good enough, we’ll just do it ourselves. Working in the studio is good if you know exactly what you’re doing. But we tend to rework things a lot. Once something’s recorded, it’s like “ahh, let’s change this, let’s change that,” and when it’s done it’s a completely different song. It’s nice to have that time, to have no constraints.How has the band changed since you put out that first EP in 2012?
We’re getting a lot more comfortable being experimental live. In our jam space, we’ll feedback and play with noise and jam things out for 20 minutes, which on the recording might only be three minutes long. We’re slowly getting to a point where we’re comfortable doing that live. The songs themselves are more concise, I think. We’re giving space to add improvisation, while at the same time the song structures are pretty straight forward. The first couple songs we recorded were kind of all over the place.
Advertisement
People are always really curious, actually. Depending where you are, everybody’s interested. They’re like, “What’s the deal?” I think people always hear about Winnipeg bands, but maybe Winnipeg bands don’t necessarily tour that much? We’ll get out there, and everybody always knows one or two bands. It could be as obvious as Propagandhi, or it could just be some super obscure band that I haven’t even heard of. The places we’ve been playing, people are always talking about, like, HAM or Kittens. Stuff like that. I guess they’re finding out about our stuff that way. Someone in Lethbridge was like, “I saw you were from Winnipeg and I didn’t even bother checking out your music. I just showed up. The last band I saw from Winnipeg was HAM.” I guess they played Lethbridge a lot? But he seemed to think we fell in the same vein. I guess there’s a sound that we’ve gotten into that is apparently “Winnipeg.” What that is, I don’t know.How would you describe Winnipeg’s scene to people, then? Say, like to someone in Coeur d’Alene or Wisconsin or some place like that?It’s the most hodge-podge music scene ever. I love it. It’s super tight, but there’s no bands that sound like each other. There’s no definitive scene. You go to Vancouver or Halifax, most cities have a sound. But I don’t think Winnipeg has a sound at all. It’s all over the place, but everything kind of works. There’s like, maybe two bands in the city that we sound like. But we play with everybody. We’ll play with pop bands, or metal bands, or noise bands, whatever. I love the scene, it’s always interesting.
Advertisement
Disadvantages? Places to play. I’ve been putting on shows in my basement for the past month because there’s no venue that’ll book them. I mean, I like house shows. On the road they’re the most comfortable ones to play. There’s not the stress of getting people into a bar. It’s a lot easier to get people to come hang out at a house. It’s never really good sound, but it doesn’t really matter. People are more into it, it’s more intimate. And when people are actually there, they freak out a lot more. You can’t hide at the back of the bar.Catch Pop Crimes in Winnipeg Thursday July 3 for their 7” release in the basement of the HMS Arlington.Sheldon Birnie commits crimes against pop all the time - @badguybirnie---Want more from the 'Peg? Powder Blue is making trippy synth-pop music, we got drunk at the Junos, and learned some manners from DJ Mama Cutsworth.